LBC |Love Beyond Control/Chapter 1

Chapter 1

In the early spring, the air was still wrapped in gusts of cold wind.

Yet outside a certain hotel, a boiling crowd had gathered, packed from the lobby all the way to the road across the street.

“Stop taking pictures, put your phones down!”

“Make way, make some space, you’re blocking both sides of the road!!”

Xin Yuan kept his head lowered, sandwiched between the security guards and his assistant, like some rescued endangered little animal.

After finally squeezing forward a few steps through the crowd, Xin Yuan’s hat still got brushed off, revealing a pair of bloodshot almond-shaped eyes beneath the brim.

“I told you to move, can’t you understand human language!?”

A security guard raised a hand to shove someone, but Xin Yuan stopped him from behind.

“It’s okay.”

Xin Yuan’s gaze had actually already begun to scatter.

But because his expression was so gentle, all the fans only saw his bright, clear eyes at first glance and ignored his swaying, unsteady steps.

“It’s still cold out. Everyone, keep warm, go home and rest early, and be careful on the road.”

This scene was recorded and posted online, and ithard struck countless fans right in the heart.

Xin Yuan was twenty-two years old and had not even been in the industry for three years, yet he had already accumulated an enormous fanbase.

Those who loved him said his acting was good, his character was good, and that his looks were the least worth mentioning of all his strengths.

Those who hated him said he slept with higher-ups, slept with directors, and was just a “sleep star” who climbed to the top by relying on his face and ass.

After all, his debut work was a film by the grandmaster-level director Wang Muge, and after that he had gone on to land one big production after another. Even if you replaced him with a pig, it could still have been made famous.

There was even a rumor that Xin Yuan was the biological son of the top property tycoon Xin Jianye, and that he was simply the young heir coming to the entertainment industry to experience life.

But whether the rumors were good or bad, none of them affected Xin Yuan’s commercial value in the slightest, to the point that he was constantly running between brand events and filming on set, and in the past three days he had slept less than ten hours in total.

At this moment, Xin Yuan was exhausted to the extreme. Those flashing lights and screams felt like rusted iron strings, sawing at his heart one strand at a time.

The moment the elevator doors cut off the fans outside, Xin Yuan finally put away his numb smile.

With trembling hands, he took a pill from the side of his clothes, tipped his head back and pressed it into his mouth, gasping for breath.

“What happened, did your head hurt again?”

When he fell into a warm embrace, Xin Yuan thought his condition had gotten worse again.

But even in his own hallucination, Xin Yuan still managed a smile and gently shook his head.

“You’re lying again, little liar.”

Xin Yuan did not argue. He only stared foolishly at the phantom before him.

Every time he came close to losing control, Xin Yuan made it through by relying on this kind of fantasy. Yet the increasingly close breathing made Xin Yuan gradually realize that this time, it seemed to be real.

“You? How are you…?”

The assistant who had been following beside him was nowhere to be seen. Xin Yuan suddenly lifted his head, his unfocused eyes straining to look at Xiang Zhufeng.

“I missed you, so I drove over from Shancheng and didn’t let anyone notice.”

As Xiang Zhufeng spoke, he lifted Xin Yuan into his arms and used his coat to cover Xin Yuan’s face, “especially your father.”

In the underground parking garage, the car had already been parked in a blind spot away from the cameras. The heater was on full blast inside, and the air carried a faint perfume scent.

Xin Yuan was still a little dazed. It was not until Xiang Zhufeng locked the car door and sat down beside him that Xin Yuan cautiously leaned closer, brushing the side of Xiang Zhufeng’s face with the tip of his nose, wanting to confirm once again that this was not a dream.

Xiang Zhufeng naturally pulled Xin Yuan into his arms. After a moment, he frowned and pinched his waist.

“Why are you thin again? Have you been eating properly?”

Xin Yuan lowered his guilty gaze and retreated half an inch. “I have…”

Xiang Zhufeng raised a hand, pinched Xin Yuan’s chin, and pulled him back, staring into his eyes as he repeated, “You have?”

Actually, he had not.

Xin Yuan’s stomach had always been bad. Whenever his schedule was packed and he was exhausted, he simply could not eat anything.

On top of that, he had severe motion sickness. Every time he traveled back and forth for events, he would vomit until everything went dark.

“If you lose one more jin, I’ll deduct one thousand from Xiao Nuan’s salary.” When Xin Yuan still did not answer, Xiang Zhufeng threatened him.

“That won’t do.”

Xin Yuan rarely put on a stubborn front once, turning his face away. “That’s abusing your power.”

“Abusing my power?”

As Xiang Zhufeng spoke, his right hand had already slipped into Xin Yuan’s shirt, following the line of his waist all the way down, stroking toward the place on his body that rarely had any flesh.

“With how disobedient you are, I thought you had long forgotten I was your boss.”

That was true, but Xin Yuan always deliberately made himself forget Xiang Zhufeng’s identity.

Back when Xiang Zhufeng was still his senior, he was already a legendary figure at school, getting recommended for postgraduate study through outstanding grades all the way, and then in graduate school he even earned dual degrees in business management and law.

In other people’s eyes, Xiang Zhufeng was his father Xin Jianye’s top right-hand man, the person in charge of his management company, and a rare genius spanning both the property and entertainment industries.

But the halo on Xiang Zhufeng, like the distance that stood between the two of them, the brighter that halo shone, the shorter the time he could hold Xiang Zhufeng in his arms became.

Seeing Xin Yuan unhappy, Xiang Zhufeng deliberately let his hand linger somewhere, his palm applying a little more force. Xin Yuan’s body jolted hard and immediately went limp in the front passenger seat.

“Not here, let’s go upstairs…”

Xin Yuan’s voice was so soft it could barely form properly, but Xiang Zhufeng had no intention of letting him off.

“Go upstairs? Aren’t you afraid Xiao Nuan will catch us?”

The moment Xin Yuan hesitated, Xiang Zhufeng directly rose from the driver’s seat, flipped sideways, and from above pinned him down on the seat.

Xiang Zhufeng used one knee to part Xin Yuan’s legs, one hand pressing on Xin Yuan’s shoulder, the other hand going around the obstruction, reaching toward the end that had been waiting for him for a long time.

The sedative he had taken earlier gradually took effect. Xin Yuan’s mind was dull and sluggish, but his soul seemed to float in midair.

His reason wanted to refuse, but both hands had already climbed onto Xiang Zhufeng’s back, as if he wanted to merge completely with Xiang Zhufeng.

“Does it feel a little better now?”

Xiang Zhufeng’s voice was low and gentle. Knowing that Xin Yuan no longer had the strength to answer, he still asked, “Why don’t you like being in the car? After all this time, are you still shy?”

Xin Yuan had been in the industry for three years, and his shameful relationship with Xiang Zhufeng had also lasted for three years.

But every time Xiang Zhufeng held him like this and skillfully rubbed him with his palm, he still had the illusion that he might die in Xiang Zhufeng’s hands at any moment.

“That’s enough…”

The moment Xin Yuan spoke, it came out as uncontrollable sobbing, but Xiang Zhufeng ignored it completely. Instead, he sped up even more, as if he simply wanted to see that pleading expression on his face, until Xin Yuan shuddered and confessed everything. Only then did Xiang Zhufeng grant him a sliver of breathing room.

Xin Yuan collapsed limply into Xiang Zhufeng’s arms. After a long while, he lifted his wet eyes. “You don’t want it?”

Xiang Zhufeng gave a soft laugh and pecked his earlobe. “If I want it now, you won’t be able to shoot tomorrow.”

Xin Yuan hid his reddened ears and shrank a little more into Xiang Zhufeng’s chest. “You came today, did you have something else to tell me?”

If it had been Xiang Zhufeng from many years ago saying he missed him, Xin Yuan would have believed it.

But if the current Xiang Zhufeng had only come to see him because he missed him, abandoning all his work to glance at him once, Xin Yuan would not believe it.

“Last month, Lin Sheng got you two new endorsements. You don’t want to take them?” Xiang Zhufeng asked casually.

So it really was still this reason.

Lin Sheng was his agent, and also the gold-medal operator Xiang Zhufeng had spent a great deal of effort to poach back then. Any artist shaped by her hands would become explosively popular sooner or later.

“Because the brand side requires on-location shooting, and we have to go to a very far place to film. I don’t want to go.”

Xin Yuan only said half the reason.

It was not that he did not want to go, it was that he was afraid.

When filming, Xin Yuan could enter the world of the role and briefly forget his fear.

But magazines and commercials pushed his own self in front of the camera, and those stacked cameras were like pairs of dark eyes, forcing him little by little toward the abyss.

After every shoot, he remained trapped in nightmares through entire nights.

“I know you’re tired, and I also want you to rest properly, but you also know that Xin Jianye has always been watching the betting agreement on you. Don’t let him become suspicious because of this and affect the plan we’ve been plotting for so long.”

Xiang Zhufeng took out the contract he had prepared in advance and handed it in front of Xin Yuan. “I was too busy some time ago. For the shoots after this, if I have time, I’ll go with you.”

The bet agreement was real, and the long-plotted plan was real too, but that he would have time to accompany him was fake.

Xin Yuan knew he had no chance to refuse, so he bit his lower lip and left his fingerprint and signature on the contract.

Xiang Zhufeng kissed Xin Yuan once, took the contract back in satisfaction, and then glanced at his wristwatch.

The timing was perfect.

He counted five numbers backward in his heart. When the last number fell, Xin Yuan’s phone indeed buzzed once.

The ringtone was not loud, but Xin Yuan instantly woke up and straightened his body like a spring.

This was his mother’s exclusive ringtone.

That brief sound was like an unsolvable curse, tearing at his nerves.

So Xin Yuan did not notice that at this very moment, the Xiang Zhufeng tightly holding him had an unfamiliar expression hidden on his face.

“Where are you now?”

The moment the voice rang out, the air in the car immediately froze.

“I looked at your schedule and knew your day’s work had already ended, so why is no one in your room?”

Xin Yuan did not answer for a moment, and his mother turned to sarcasm again. “Listen carefully, I don’t care who you’re fooling around with now, come back immediately.”

In the elevator, Xin Yuan repeatedly straightened the shirt wrinkled by Xiang Zhufeng, and after confirming that the smell had been completely covered by the perfume, he finally dared to walk out.

His mother was standing right in the middle of the corridor, arms crossed over her chest, looking him over from bottom to top.

“No need to put on that look like the enemy is at the gates. If it weren’t for something sudden, I wouldn’t really want to see you either.”

Xin Yuan’s hand on the door paused for a moment, then he went inside on his own.

He Ye yanked the door shut, threw her bag hard onto the sofa, and sat down with her legs crossed.

“Xin Yuan, do you know, your good days as a big star are probably about to come to an end.”

Xin Yuan stood rigidly beside the sofa, his expression blank.

He Ye hated most Xin Yuan’s attitude of not caring about anything, as if everything she had fought so hard for was a joke in Xin Yuan’s eyes.

“You still don’t know, do you? Xin Jianye has already made up his mind to have Xiang Zhufeng get engaged to his precious daughter Xin Hui, and it will be announced publicly next month.”

Xiang Zhufeng, engaged?

With Xin Hui!?

Xin Yuan slowly blinked, as if trying very hard to understand what those words meant.

His brain had not yet sorted out the answer, but the expression on his face had already cracked first.

“Now you know to be nervous?”

He Ye was finally satisfied with Xin Yuan’s reaction and sneered,

“Xin Yuan, you know better than anyone what kind of person Xin Jianye is. He’s still keeping us around because I can help him get resources, and you can be his money tree, but you’re not his biological son after all. In the end, he’ll only leave the family fortune to Xin Hui, the biological one!”

Xin Yuan slowly turned around and looked at He Ye, his hollow gaze as if trapped in a nightmare.

At thirteen, his mother, who changed men even faster than changing clothes, suddenly settled down, and it was also that year that Xin Yuan learned Xin Jianye’s name.

At eighteen, his mother finally passed Xin Jianye’s long “assessment period,” and brought him into the Xin family mansion as she transformed overnight.

As a reward, Xin Yuan, whose grades at the time could only get him into an ordinary first-tier university, was stuffed into a top university by Xin Jianye under the identity of a special admissions student. From then on, the Xin family had another youngest son who existed only in rumors, but was never announced to the public.

The later scene became long and blurred, with only his mother’s mocking voice coming and going:

“I said it, Xin Jianye putting so much effort into nurturing Xiang Zhufeng, he clearly didn’t only regard him as a capable subordinate, but wanted to use Xiang Zhufeng to help Xin Hui hold onto the family fortune. Xin Jianye passed over so many rich young masters and specifically chose Xiang Zhufeng, a poor boy who doesn’t even have parents. He really did go to a lot of trouble for this.”

As He Ye spoke, she let out a few more sharp laughs. “But tell me, Xin Hui hates us so much. After Xiang Zhufeng helps her take power, what kind of fate do the two of us have?”

Xin Yuan watched He Ye’s mouth moving, saw her expression growing more and more ferocious, but gradually he could no longer hear clearly what she was saying.

All his awareness sank into that one sentence.

Xiang Zhufeng was going to marry Xin Hui.

Xiang Zhufeng was going to become his nominal sister’s husband.